Pay Up My Blood
by xxsosuemexx
Summary: Max and the gang have been captured again. But this time, it has nothing to do with Max. It's all about Fang and Iggy. Oh, yeah, and this experiment who is a little unstable...
1. Different

**A/N: Hello! Time for my first chaptered fic! Okay, the first chapter's short but I promise the second won't be.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, or any of the charecters. Except for Fang's clone's clone. Yes, Fang's clone has a clone.**

**Fang's clone: I do?**

**Me: Fine, no you don't, and if you did I wouldn't own him. sigh**

* * *

It was always like this, wasn't it? I just hadn't ever noticed. It was a regular cycle: save our skins, relax, and then get captured. I sighed, looking around the room I was in. Angel was in a crate on my left, beyond her was Gazzy, and Fang was to my immediate right, with Iggy and Nudge next to him. For once she wasn't talking. In a moment, I would be taken away to be questioned by one of the whitecoats. Right? 

_No, Maximum, this time is different. _

'Yeah, well, what do you know about anything?' I thought at Jeb. Stupid Jeb. Stupid, traitorous jerk.

_I know a lot, and I wish you would trust me._

'I hate you.'

It sounded like he sighed. _I know, Max, I know._

Yes! I was right! Two whitecoats and four Flyboys had just come in the door. 'Ha! In your face, Jeb!'

_Um, Max…_

But wait… the whitecoats weren't going to my cage. They… passed it! And – get this! – stopped in front of Fang's cage! Different tactics? I don't know. One of the whitecoats, a short, fat one, opened up his cage and ordered two Flyboys to grab him, while the other one, a tall, blonde guy, did the same to Iggy's cage.

Oookkkaaayy…

And then they were led away. 'Um, okay. You got me. What's going on?'

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Fang and Iggy were led into a room with loads of computers and monitors lining the walls, the images constantly changing. But Fang didn't look at them. Fang looked at the man in the middle of the room. Ter Borcht.

"It's the Terminator. Twelve o'clock," Fang muttered to Iggy. A timid looking whitecoat approached them.

"Um, you two are needed to help with our experiment, which is about your age. We heightened its emotions and hormones, and so we, uh… we, uh…" he trailed off.

"What?" Fang asked, losing his patience. The whitecoat jumped, as if he hadn't figured he could talk.

"We need you to help us with our experiment."

"Oh, well if that's all," Iggy said sarcastically, "I guess we'll just…" then Iggy started yelling, "Dude! You're mad! We won't help you with your little plot to ruin another person's life!"

"Um, I, uh…" The whitecoat stuttered.

Iggy continued to harass him. "Do you realize how _wrong _this is? Taking an innocent child's life from them and then asking other innocent children to lend a hand in the destruction of their sanity?"

"You are not so innocent," ter Borcht spoke in a heavily accented manner, "If I recall correctly."

"And vat's dat supposed to mean?" said Iggy, who was doing a pretty good job at matching ter Borcht's accent.

"Nevah mind." Iggy smirked at the way he said "never."

"Our experiment has never been exposed to anything other than the world it knows right now," explained Timid Whitecoat. "We feel it's time to test how it reacts to certain changes in its environment. And you need to help us with some of the tests."

"And why would we do that?" Iggy asked.

"Because if you do we'll set you free."

* * *

**A/N: And BOOM! The end of the first chapter! Reveiw!!! I'll update soon!**


	2. but Normal

**A/N: Okay, Chapter 2!!! Much better than the previous, in my opinion. But whatever. On with the disclaimer.**

Disclaimer: As much as I would love to claim, I can't, due to federal law. And James Patterson.

* * *

She blinked. White. Normal.

She sat up. White. Normal.

She looked around. Shiny. NOT NORMAL!

She dashed over to the mirror and looked at what she saw: herself. She touched the mirror, as if trying to climb through. Then she fingered the dark hair hanging in her face. Her reflection did the same. She looked at her eyes. The light grey orbs reflected the room. She touched them, first her right eye, then her left. Then she drew back her fist and slammed it into the mirror. It shattered and the pieces fell to the floor, where she knelt, cradling her bloody hand. The pale, fragile skin had been ripped apart in the one simple act of breaking a mirror.

She bent her head and licked up the blood, surprised at the new taste. She explored where the blood had come from, by picking up one of the palm-sized pieces of shattered mirror and dragging it down the underside of her arm. Blood poured out and the world turned grey.

She blinked. Grey. Not normal.

She blinked. Black.

She slept.

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White! Wonderful, wonderful white! But, wait… shiny! It was still in her hand! The piece of the shiny!

She was about to fling it across the room when the noticed something reflected in the mirror. Her eye.

She kept the mirror.

Time passed. She didn't know how long, nor did she care. It was always like this: time passing in the white room. It was normal. Normal was good.

Normal wasn't there anymore! Something was happening! Something bad! Make it end! Stop!

She threw her hands over her ears and cowered in a corner until she realized that it had a rhythm. It had a beat. It was music.

She stood up. She swayed. She heard.

There were words. Words she wasn't sure she understood. Words she was afraid of and yet-

They had to be hers. She needed them. If she didn't have them she would… she would… keep on living as she had. Horrible! Horrible normality!

She danced. No, she danced!

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"Dr. ter Borcht, you have to see this!"

Fang looked up from the computer they had let him find a song on. Timid Whitecoat was beckoning the Terminator over to a monitor. Fang decided it was nothing important and went back to browsing iTunes.

"Oh, wow!" Fang looked up again. Timid Whitecoat was marveling over the monitor. Fang got up to take a look. The experiment… was dancing. And… she was _dancing! _Drama Queen (and the whitecoats referred to her) was dancing to Breaking Benjamin! That stuff was like, undanceable!

Oh, well. Fang turned back to the computer. Not his problem.

"What's happening?" Iggy asked.

"Drama Queen's dancing."

"To Breaking Benjamin? I thought that stuff was like, undancealble!"

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NO! The normality had returned! But, wait! She found the mirror and drew it close. Then she noticed the scars on her arm. All that stuff really happened! It really happened! She had something to hold onto now, a whole new set of questions that waited to be answered.

She sat there, her back against the nearest wall, pondering what had happened the day before. There had been music… and dancing…

She tensed suddenly. Something was coming. Something else…

It was black. It was not normal. She loved the sight of it. It slithered forward to her on its belly, its triangular head pointed directly at her. A pink, forked tongue tasted the air, and then the snake hissed.

She recalled the words from the previous day… something about crowed streets…

She sang. She sang and the snake writhed in pain before her. She sang the meaningless words and watched the deaf snake squirm in fear of her voice, which filled the whole room. She crawled towards the snake and held out her arm, singing all the time. Then she paused, and the snake lunged forward and bit her arm.

She laughed. It was a high, mad laughter that reverberated off of the white walls of her world. And then her world disappeared.

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Whitecoats rushed in to save Drama Queen from death without her knowing it. Fang looked on a they quickly operated on her.

"Um, hello! Still here!" Iggy said to Fang.

"She let the snake bite her," he tersely replied.

"And?"

"They're working on her."

"And?"

Fang stayed silent. The doctors placed an I.V. in her, just like they did every time she fainted from lack of food.

"And?" Iggy was becoming impatient.

Who knows if she'll make it out alive?

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She woke up to the same room she left. Boring. But on her arm, there was another scar. Four dots marked where the snake had bitten her. For the first time in her life, she wondered what would happen today. In time, she was granted that knowledge. From the same dark corner that the snake appeared, a liquid began creeping along the ground. Blood. She recognized it. She ran forward to it and touched it, watching as a drop rolled from her fingertip down her hand and down her arm. She smiled. She cupped her hands and filled them with blood. She drank deeply, loving the fact that she could taste it.

She turned around, and saw that the blood had covered the floor in the little time that she had her back turned. No matter, more blood for her to have! She knelt down and filled her hands with it again.

Something touched her ankles. The blood. It had reached ankle height. She lifted her foot and examined it. It was covered in blood. The blood was rising rapidly. It occurred to her that she should probably be scared, but her joy and curiosity blocked out any fear that happened to enter her mind. It was knee high. She stared. It was beautiful. Thigh high.

Suddenly she wondered whose blood it was. It couldn't have been hers; she had fallen asleep when a little bit had leaked out. Did that mean there were other people like her?

Waist high. Surely the snake had proved that… no, it only proved that that snake had existed.

The blood was quickly reaching her shoulders, and the fear entered her mind once more. She paid no heed, and put her head under the surface to drink some more. When she came back up, her eyes stung because she hadn't closed them, and made a mental note not to do that next time. But now the blood had reached her neck, and was climbing to her chin.

Should she be scared? Should she be afraid? No, it was blood. Blood was good. She put her head under again and drank some more.

When she stood up again she had to jump to get air. Air. It was separated from the blood. How strange. Her body felt increasingly light, like she could fly, so she jumped again. This time she managed to keep her chin above the blood by moving her arms a certain way. It was fun.

The ceiling. Oh, no. If it touched her head she wouldn't be able to climb any more. The blood, once her friend, had now turned dangerous. Panicking, she forgot to move her arms, and she sunk. Down, down, down.

She drank some more before blacking out.

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"You may go back to your cages now," Timid Whitecoat dismissed them, like he did at the end of every day, "But in the morning we will test how she reacts to you two."

Dread filled Fang. She destroyed a mirror, danced to Breaking Benjamin, and she drank blood! What was she going to do to them?

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**A/N: And here is the end of Ch. 2! Yay! Review, otherwise I won't get better and I shall force you to read bad fanfics!!!**

**Muahahahahahaha!!! And if you reveiw you get a box of Rice Krispies!**

**Rice Krispes not included.**


	3. Loathing

**A/N: Hey you smexy peoples! This chappy is just a bridge to the next chapter. The next chapter is exciting, but this one is important. I think...**

**Disclaimer: Do you really think that I own MR? **

**Claimer: Drama Queen, or She, or whatever you want to call her, is mine. MINE!!! evil laugh**

* * *

When Fang came back after his fourth day of testing, he was nervous. I could tell. The bird part of me caught the way his dark eyes moved from place to place, even though a normal person would only think they were twitches. Once the whitecoats had disappeared, I asked him what was wrong. Surprisingly he answered. Granted, he had enforced his two-word rule, but I still got a:

"New experiment."

Nice. Now was this new experiment a hybrid? Were they a genius? Were they dangerous? I really hate Fang.

_No you don't._

'SHUT UP!' I thought/yelled back at His Vocal-ness the Jeb. "So…" I said in a normal voice, "What's it like?"

And of _course _he answered me. Not. Get this. _He shrugged. _We are in very small dog crates that push down on you from all sides, and yet he still managed to shrug. I _really _hate this guy.

_No you don't._

I counted to ten. Then I yelled,

"SHUT UP YOU (insert multiple swear word that I am not allowed to print here)! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE GALL TO TELL ME WHAT I DO AND DON'T FEEL! YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE WHO I DO AND DON'T HATE, SEEING AS YOU'RE NUBER ONE ON THE LIST! YOU HEARTLESS JERK!!!" Oh, whoops. I said that out loud. My bad.

Fang looked at me. He just looked at me. Jerk. Nudge was too scared to speak, but I could always count on Angel to tell me that everything was okay. Right?

"Max, everything's gonna be okay. You know that?" my sweet Angel.

"Thank you, sweetie," I told her.

I turned my attention back to Fang. "What's up?" I whispered.

Fang gave me a look that said "nothing."

I shot him the bird. (Get it? I… never mind.) I looked over at Iggy.

"Yo! Iggy! What's up?"

"The sky. Not that I can see it or anything, but, yeah, I'm told it's still up there." I really hate Iggy sometimes.

"Okay, Iggy, I am going to cook all of our food for a week if you don't tell me what's going on right this second," I ground out. Ha! I totally had him there. There's no way he can wriggle out of that one!

"New experiment," he told me.

I think you can pretty much guess my reaction: I hate him more than Fang. Wait, never mind, his funny sarcasm has to be taken into account, so… I hate him less than Fang. I hate Fang almost as much as Jeb. But what about the Erasers and Flyboys? Surely they fall in somewhere! Under Jeb? No, Fang had that spot. Under Fang? No, I don't hate him that much. But if he's under the Erasers and Flyboys, then it sounds like I don't really hate him… I got it! Here's the order, from most hated to least: Jeb, Flyboys, Fang, Erasers, Iggy. But wait… what about Ari? He must be taken into account. But do I hate him? Or feel sorry for him? Hmm… Okay, I have it: Jeb, Crazy Ari, Flyboys, Fang, Iggy, Kid Ari. But Kid Ari shouldn't even be on the list. So scratch that. Um… What about Jeb, Fang, Flyboys, Iggy, Crazy Ari. Wait… Ari's dead, so he shouldn't even be on the list. And the Flyboys are about to be dead… but better not get my hopes up. Oh, and the Flyboys are robots, so they don't really count either… Oh well. Final order is: (drum roll please) Jeb, Fang, Flyboys (see above, Re: Flyboys and their aliveness), Iggy. Yeah. That should do it.

Fang was looking at me strangely. I looked at Angel. She grinned. Stupid thought planting!

"It's not stupid. And thank you for the new cuss words," she stated sweetly. I rolled my eyes. And… oh, look! Right on cue! Whitecoats and Flyboys!

The whitecoats took Fang and Iggy. I'm starting to get really frustrated…

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The room was completely white, and it hurt Fang's eyes. Iggy had to be told that it was completely boring before he let it drop. Drama Queen was sleeping with the I.V. still in her arm. A whitecoat stood by, ready to take it out as soon as she woke.

Fang looked at his watch. An hour had passed, just waiting for her to wake up. It was so boring! But at least now he had a chance to see what she looked like up close. She had dark hair that hung limply in front of her face, and looked as though it had never been washed. It probably hadn't, due to the "testing." Her pale skin looked like it could break by merely touching it, and she was wearing the School uniform: a white, shapeless pillowcase/dress, that went down to the floor, because she was so short. But even though she was short, she had long legs. Or, as long of legs you can have and still be short. Whatever.

She stirred. The whitecoat grabbed the I.V. and practically _sprinted_ out of the room. Oh, great. Her eyes opened. She looked at Fang and Iggy. And she practically ran into the wall trying to get away from them. Fang stared at her. She stared back with fear in her eyes, all the while looking them up and down.

Iggy cleared his throat. Oh, right. "She ran away."

"Why?" Iggy asked stupidly.

"Duh."

"Oh."

Drama Queen inched closer to them. And closer. Tension tied up Fang's body until he could do nothing but sit there. She came closer, still… and… sat down beside them. Fang's reasonable half (that had told him not to worry) laughed at his other half, which had breathed a sigh of relief.

Drama Queen looked at Fang with questions written all over her face. "I'm Fang, and this is Iggy," Fang tried. She jumped a bit, but smiled. She then looked at Iggy, who was staring a bit over her shoulder. She tilted her head. "He's blind," Fang explained.

"Oh, yeah, you just have to advertise it don't you?" Iggy said.

"Your voices…" she started. Whoa, her voice! It was nothing like when she sang. When she sang it was honey-smooth and flawless. When she spoke, however, her voice was hesitant, as if she didn't really know whether it was there. "Your voices sound like the… the…" she trailed off.

"Music?" offered Iggy. She nodded. "That's 'cause we're guys. Guys have deeper voices."

"If you're guys, then what am I?" she asked.

"You're a chick," Iggy got elbowed by Fang. "I mean girl."

"Oh." She thought for a moment then came up with the question: "Where did you come from?"

"Um… oh, you mean like where we were before we came in here?" Iggy asked. She nodded. "Um, this room is actually in the middle of this top-secret facility called the School. The whitecoats (the people who work here) do different stuff to different people. Like Fang and I have wings—" he stretched his wing, "and your hormones and stuff are all messed up. They even make people smarter and stuff. It's totally creepy and stuff."

"So… I'm different?" she asked.

"Yeah, you're different from normal humans."

She scratched her back. "Um… I think I get that." Her eyes were slowly losing focus. She was about to faint.

"Oh, before you sleep! Don't drink blood. It's not food, and it's not meant to be drunk, okay?"

She fainted.

"Well that was a waste of time," Fang stated.

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**Don't you just love Fang? haha REVIEW!!! 5 reveiws get an update!**


	4. these Changes

**A/N: Hey, it's me, and school started so I had to spend some time away from the computer.**

**Anyway, I decided that I would update today, so here it is! Oh, and if any of you have been wondering, I use Word so anything that I did in bold, italics, or inserting ruler was undone. It stinks like a public restroom. **

**Disclaimer: I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. I must not claim Maximum Ride. **

* * *

"Quickly! Get da hybrids! Something's wrong!" 

The whitecoat obeyed at once upon hearing ter Borcht's command. As soon as the whitecoat, plus a few robotic Erasers had left, he sat down in the nearest chair and put his head in his hands. He could not lose this experiment. It had taken too long; it was too expensive to be damaged. It couldn't be happening! Ter Borcht looked up at the monitor again, and sighed. What was he supposed to do?

* * *

Fang and Iggy were hurried into ter Borcht's presence. 

"What's going on?" Iggy asked the room in general. The Terminator said nothing, but pointed to the monitor on the wall. Drama Queen was in her chamber, but she was writhing on the floor, arching her back, and clawing at her spine. Her face showed nothing but alarmingly strong pain. Fang felt a pang of pity for her, and quickly informed Iggy of what was going on.

"Whoa," Iggy said in astonishment. "Do you have any idea what's causing it?" he asked the Terminator.

"Not vun bit. I can't understand it!" he said, obviously frustrated.

"Well, maybe you should take a look at her hormone levels and see it they match any other animals. She might be sprouting wings," Fang said, half jokingly.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that? After all, _you_ sprouted vings after we reduced your emotions."

Fang blinked.

"Do _what?_" Iggy practically shouted. But the Terminator was busy tapping away at the nearest computer. "They did _what_ to you?" Iggy directed this to Fang. Fang shrugged. "Yeah, I can totally see how they reduced your hormones." Fang flicked him off, which was totally wasted on Iggy, but it made him feel better.

"Oh, no," the Terminator said, his voice rising in pitch. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!"

"What!?" Iggy demanded.

"Her hormone levels match those of three organiszms: a sandpiper, a chameleon, and a redback butterflyfish."

"Why is that bad?" Iggy asked.

"We already tried a chameleon hybrid and a butterflyfish hybrid, and neizzer one survived past infancy. The chameleon developed a rare skin disease and the butterflyfish couldn't breathe," he explained.

"So, if she mutates into anything other than a sandpiper, she'll die?" Iggy confirmed.

"That is correct," the Terminator said in an annoying teacher-like way. Fang was reminded of when he went to school while they were staying at Anne's house. Suddenly painful memories surfaced from nowhere, one in particular sticking out. It was the fight he and Max had after he had kissed Lissa. He made a face. Suddenly, Drama Queen turned her face straight at the hidden camera, so that her face on the monitor looked directly at Fang. Creepy. Then she collapsed again and let out a wail of pain. A million thoughts raced through Fang's mind, but he made sure that none of them showed on his face.

"You!" the Terminator yelled at Fang, "Get in there!"

Fang stared at him. He was so not serious. Was he? Seconds later Fang was being pushed into Drama Queen's world.

She knew nothing. There was nothing. Nothing besides pain.

She wasn't even sure if she existed anymore. What if she imagined the scars, the snake, the blood, Iggy, and Fang? Fang. There was something about Fang, right now. It just… came to her that he was near, somewhere. She looked up into the corner of her world and saw Fang. She just saw him, his face. She got images of guilt, pain, and self hate so strong that she cried out. Then the pain in her back returned so strong, she almost blacked out.

The next thing she knew, Fang was watching her. She looked up, clutching at her shoulders.

"You're real!" she exclaimed.

"Um, yeah," he said.

A long time passed where she almost made her head touch her feet when trying to relive her pain. Finally she spoke. "Show me your wings," she whispered. "Please."

Fang looked at her, puzzled. Finally he decided to trust her and extended one pure black wing. She gasped. "They're… it's…" she stuttered. "Oh, what's the word? Help me out here. Bless… no, bell… no…"

"Beautiful?" he offered.

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"And she fainted. Right after I said 'beautiful,'" Fang told Iggy. Iggy nodded, showing that he understood and at the same time asking him to go on. "Then all this blood started seeping out of her back, until she was lying in a pool of it. I think she died," he continued.

"Again with the blood!" Iggy commented. "When will this girl stop with the blood?"

A Flyboy poked Iggy in the back. "No talking," it barked.

"What are you going to say next, 'Resistance is useless'? Because I think we all figured out that it isn't. Plus we've been talking for about ten minutes now," Iggy pointed out.

The Flyboy didn't even seem to hear him. But finally, the whitecoats came back into the observing room.

"Terminator back," Fang alerted Iggy.

"So, Term- um, ter, Borscht, when are we going to be released?" Iggy addressed the Terminator.

"You vill be reveased when in da morning. We haf no further use of you," he commented.

"Why?" Iggy asked. "Did she die?"

"No," the Terminator answered ("Yes!" Iggy whispered in triumph.) "But she vill soon be retired. She has, as you said, 'sprouted vings.'"

"Then we get to take her with us," Fang spoke up suddenly. Some of the whitecoats jumped a bit; they didn't think he could talk.

"Dat vas no part of ze deal," the Terminator argued.

"You said that you'd release the flock. Well, Drama Queen's part of the flock now, too. Hand her over," Fang retorted.

The Terminator sighed. "Ve haf no use for her," he pointed out to his colleagues. They nodded in agreement. Timid Whitecoat nodded so vigorously he looked like he was learning how to bob for apples. He was probably ready to get rid of her- them – all of them.

"So we leave in the morning," Iggy concluded.

"Resistance is useless," droned the Flyboy.

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**A/N: I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. I must not force people to review with guns, spitballs, or anthing that can cause physical harm. **


	5. Epiphanies

**A/N: First off: thank you to **hunter **for the watermelon. It tasted like strawberries. I ate it with Fang's clone's clone, who was recently made.**

**Fang's clone's clone (FCC): When did I get watermelon?**

**Me: Shut up and tell the people how they should know that I don't own anything but the girl and you.**

**FCC: She owns me, the girl, and the plot, but nothing else.**

**Me: YES I DO! LOOK WHAT I JUST GOT OFF OF EBAY! holds up Edward's clone's clone**

**FCC: Oh, no, someone stop her before she gets Draco's clone's clone.**

**Obsessive fan girls: GET AWAY FROM THOSE CLONES! WE DESERVE THEM MORE! **

**Me: Oh, shut up. There are plenty more on eBay. fan girls run away to buy clones**

**Edward's clone's clone (ECC): eBay, because leaving the house is so 2004. **

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Fang is a genius! He's getting us out of here AND springing some girl free too. They told him that in the morning she's be brought to us, and we'd be taken outside (to the chimpanzee field) and we had half an hour to get out of there. That was going to be hard, because we were going to have to teach Drama Queen how to fly. I shifted slightly in my cage, itching to be able to spread my wings.

Suddenly I wondered how we would explain anything to her. If she lived in isolation her whole life, then she wouldn't know anything, would she?

But Fang told me that she had been able to speak fluently after hearing only one song, and was able to repeat the tune and the words effortlessly after only listening to it once. So maybe after seeing a glimpse of the world from the air, she would be able to understand everything. Well, it's not wrong to hope. Suddenly I thought of something—we could just get Nudge to talk to her if she didn't suddenly know everything (which was just hoping anyway). That would be good. Nudge would love that… if she ever talked again. Suddenly this really big feeling of worry just swept over me. Like a mom worries about her kid. I shook it off.

"Nudge?" I checked, making eye contact. She said nothing. "Nudge, honey?"

"Mmhm?" So I don't even get a word.

"Nudge, sweetie, are you okay?" I asked. I was getting really worried. She nodded. Just nodded. I breathed out through my nose. "Nudge, what's wrong?" I said, taking a chance that something was wrong.

I was right. A single tear leaked down Nudge's face before she murmured, "I'll tell you later." I mentally breathed a sigh of relief, before immediately wondering what was wrong.

I looked over at Angel. _What's wrong with Nudge? _I thought hard at her. Suddenly the idea just came to me that Nudge would probably like to tell me herself. I nodded at Angel, unsure of whether I thought of it or she did. Anyway, she understood me. How I love that kid.

"Thank you, Max." She smiled sweetly at me.

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Morning came, and with it came a feeling of dread, like the world was about to explode and there was a countdown going on outside. The whitecoats let us out of our cages and led us (with no Flyboys, I might add. Thank goodness!) to the Chimpanzee field.

Showtime.

Then she was led out. She was beautiful, in a filthy sort of way, with dark, stringy hair hanging in her face, and her marvelous eyes peeking out from underneath. She was still wearing the School uniform, which was a pity; even at prisons, they give the prisoners clothes before they go out into the real world. Tsk tsk.

As soon as she saw me she screamed, "MAX!" Okay, surprising much? She broke away from the Flyboys restraining her and ran a couple feet before collapsing to the ground.

"She's lived in a room her whole life," Fang explained softly. Oh.

"But how…?" Fang shrugged. I sighed. The Flyboys grabbed the small girl (who I was told was my age, but was really short (okay, maybe I shouldn't be saying that she was short because of my status as freakishly tall, but I was pretty sure that she was shorter than average fourteen-year-olds)) underneath her arms and hauled her to her feet, before tossing her the short distance to our feet.

"You cruel –" Angel gasped. Oh, right, langue. "Jerks," I whispered as I knelt beside the girl. Tears were forming in her eyes, but at the sight of me they seemed to evaporate.

"They trust you. I know you can help me if they trust you," she murmured. At first I thought she was talking about the School employees, but them I realized that she meant Fang and Iggy.

"How did you…?" Man, I'm really not finishing my sentences, am I?

"Twenty-five minutes!" a voice barked from across the field. Oh, no.

"C'mon, get up; we need to get you out of here! Angel, Gazzy, U and A!" I ordered. They obeyed, immediately jumping into the air. "Nudge, join them on my call. Okay, Nudge, open your wings." She did so without argument. "Okay," I spoke to the girl now. "Can you do that too?" She complied and opened her wings.

Whoa. They were pure white, but there were so many brown dots and flecks on them that you couldn't tell. It looked for a second like she just had plain brown wings. But they were beautiful, and smaller than mine. Oh, duh. She's short. Right. I had to shake my head to clear it and made a desperate attempt at regaining my composure.

"Okay, now watch Nudge. Nudge, can you take off with a running start?" I watched as Nudge ran a few yards then took off into the air. Drama Queen's face was twisted in concentration. "Okay, now can you—" I didn't even finish my sentence before she ran to the exact spot that Nudge had, and took off perfectly.

"Well, she's a quick learner," Fang said. I frowned. What's going on? Did she have some power that enabled her to learn from seeing? This was way too weird.

"Let's just go," I said, still confused over the whole thing.

We flew for about an hour before we found the cave at Lake Mead again. We collapsed there completely exhausted from our long flight, but we weren't tired enough to experiment with what could be cooked over a fire. Drama Queen was especially hungry, seeing as she'd never eaten food in her life, and was frail enough to begin with without the stress of flying. I made her a hotdog and smothered it in ketchup.

"Here," I said, holding it out. "Eat." She looked wary for a couple seconds, but seeing the red ketchup, she wolfed it down.

"It tastes different," she noted. My first thought was 'Than what?' but a glance from Fang made me keep it in my head. I waited until everyone had finished their apples, hotdogs, bologna, and pathetic excuses for cheese quesadilla before I asked them to go to sleep. They were all asleep in a matter of minutes, except for Fang.

I motioned for him to join me by the mouth of the cave. When he sat down beside me, I asked him for an explanation.

"She ate the hot dog because it had ketchup on it," he said. I waited for more. "She has an unhealthy obsession with blood."

Blood? I shuddered. "Which is because…?"

"She broke the mirror we put in her room. Her hand started bleeding and she licked it. It was the first thing she ever tasted," he went on. Ew. That's slightly disturbing.

"You got any theories of how she learns quickly?" I questioned.

He shook his head. I sighed.

Fang suddenly stood and took of into the night. What the heck? So of course I did the only reasonable thing I could think of to do: I followed him. Where was he going? He didn't even end the conversation! What was he doing? I sped up.

"Fang," I called. "Where are you going?"

And he _so_ answered me. Not.

You know, I really hate him.

He suddenly swooped out of sight. Where'd he go? I looked around to find… nothing. He disappeared!

"Max!" I looked down. Oh. There he is.

I landed next to him in the abandoned nest. "So… you want to explain?"

"Not really," he answered. I rolled my eyes.

"Come on, Fang. What's wrong?" How did I know something was wrong? His finger twitched when I said "explain." Can I read him or what?

"Nothing," he said very convincingly. If I didn't know him I would totally drop it then and there. But I knew better. I gave him The Look. What look, you might ask? Why, the You-Better-Tell-Me-What-Is-Going-On-Or-I-Will-Kick-Your-Little-Black-Clad-Butt-From-Here-To-Germany-Where-It-Will-Land-With-Surprising-Accuracy-In-Itex-Headquaters'-Prison-Yard. No one can resist that look. Not even Fang.

"Okay," he said, cracking. He knew that it was, indeed, physically possible for me to kick his butt that far. "Iggy likes Nudge but he doesn't want to tell her and he's afraid that Nudge will reject him because they're practically siblings," he said all in one breath. Whoa. He did? "Hypothetically." Guess not. But because I can add two and two together and still come up with the standard amount of twenty-two, I guessed what this was all about.

"This is about that night in the cave, isn't it?" Fang never looked away from my eyes, but I could read him well enough to know that the answer was yes. "Listen, Fang, I don't want to cause tension in the flock. I mean, what if we broke up? Things would get so weird and we would probably split the flock up again and…" I was rambling. We stayed silent for a long while. So that's why Fang had flown off. Bad memories of me running off from him in a cave. It's kind of like the way I change the song on my MP3 every time I think of something bad, I guess.

"But it's not that you don't like me?" Fang asked softly. I looked up, startled. Did I like Fang? Was that even possible? "Underneath all that hate that you keep for me?"

Man, I really hate Fang.

_No you don't. _

But I didn't answer Jeb.

Because I was too busy kissing Fang.

* * *

**Oooh! You hate me now! How does Fnick react? Will the flock find out? What's up with the girl? And most of all, WHERE DO YOU FIND A STUPID IAN SNYDER CLONE WHEN YOU NEED ONE?!?!?**

**Update, please, otherwise you will be reading bad fanfics for the rest of your life! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! cough cough Man, I really need to practice that more often.**


	6. of Fear

**A/N: First off, thank you so much to **hunter **and **silvershadow37 **for their various gifts: the catfish and ice cream cone from patron number one, and the Shadow Clone (from the awesome fanfic "Completing my Soul") from patron number two! Shadow Clone, you do the disclaimer.**

**Shadow Clone: Why? My old author always made the real me do the disclaimers. pouts. **

**Me: Exactly. You have experience.**

**SC: I won't do it! $starts singing "Riot" by Three Days Grace$**

**Me: Shut up Shadow Clone, you're a terrible singer.**

**SC: $goes into Cold Fury$ What did you say?**

**Me: $under her breath$ terrible, serrible, derrible, kerible, bearable… $louder$ I said that you were a bearable singer. **

**SC: I don't buy it.**

**Me: And that I don't own anything originally written by James Patterson, **silvershadow37**, or Three Days Grace. ON WITH THE STORY! looks at Cold Fury Shadow Clone and runs for her life**

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Man, I really hate Fang.

_No you don't. _

But I didn't answer Jeb.

Because I was too busy kissing Fang.

Fang pushed me away quickly. "What are you doing?" I blinked. Well _that's_ not exactly the reaction I was hoping for. "Max? Are you alright?"

"Me? Alright? Of course not. You just pushed me away," I said bluntly.

"Oh, Max," he said, sounding exasperated. "Max, I thought we decided: we're not going to risk the flock like this."

I stared at him. What? How can we both just up and change our minds at the same time? It's not possible! "But I thought…"

"It's just not fair to the flock," he explained.

I guess he was right, I just hated being wrong. Especially when I had been right for so long. "Hey, you want to go fly?" I asked, changing the subject. He nodded and we took off. I flew strait up, deciding I wanted to burn off my anger. Fang followed me.

Surprising. He usually goes his own way. I hovered a few feet above him and he flew up to me, so that we were at eye level, which never happens on the ground. "Hey, Fang, is what you said about Nudge and Iggy true?" I asked. He shrugged. I hate that guy.

Suddenly my hand moved of its own accord. It reached out to him hesitantly. What was I doing? I tried to make it go back to my side, but it wouldn't obey. Then Fang grabbed my hand. I looked up at him, but his dark eyes betrayed nothing. Then both of us folded our wings at the same time, like we could read each other's minds. We spiraled around each other and opened our wings at the same time, stopping our decent. With our hands still joined, I flew up, while he flew downward, both of us curving at the same time, which brought us full circle, until we hovered eye to eye, the exact same way we started.

As our strange dance ended, Fang jerked my hand toward him, bringing me close to him. I flapped a couple times and pulled him down into a landing, while he pulled me in against his chest. I sighed and suddenly the stress of the whole day came down on me. I collapsed.

"Whoa, Max, are you okay?" Fang asked soothingly as he knelt beside me. I laid my head back on the soft bottom of another abandoned nest.

"Yeah, I think so," I said. Fang lay down beside me and I closed my eyes; I was probably finally falling asleep (I hadn't in the School).

"Max," Fang whispered to himself after a while, probably thinking I was asleep. "What's going on with us?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She woke up to a sunrise. A sunrise! So many pretty colors!

She woke up alone. Where were Max and Fang? She rose to her feet but didn't stay for long. In a second she let out a cry and fell back on the cave floor. Her legs! Something was wrong with her legs! They burned like fire.

Iggy rolled over. Her cry had probably awakened him, but Angel, Gazzy and Nudge were still asleep, wiped out from their little adventure at the School.

"Iggy," she called softly. "Iggy, help."

Iggy came over to where she lay and kneeled beside her. "What is it?"

"My legs…" she trailed off.

"Mind if I feel for a break?" Without waiting for an answer, Iggy reached out and touched her ankle, moving up her calves slowly. But as soon as he touched her thigh, she cried out again. Iggy stayed calm and grabbed the bottom of the shapeless white dress that she was wearing and pulled it up.

"What does your leg look like?" he asked.

"It's… they're all black and blue."

"That's not good. It's probably because we did all that walking yesterday, and you're not used to it. You never walked much in your… in your… cell, did you?" Her cell. Her room. Her chamber. Her life. She shuddered, because it reminded her of the dream that woke her up.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_She was back in her old world, the plain white walls taunting her to fix them. But how? Suddenly there was an object in the middle of the room. She couldn't quite make out what it was, so she moved closer. She still couldn't see it right, even though she was right next to it, so she reached out and touched it. _

_Her hand fell off. The hand that had touched the object fell off and started dragging itself away from her._

"_Come back!" she called at it, but it paid her no heed. Finally she grabbed it with her other hand. Her whole arm fell off this time. Before it could get away, she stomped on the renegade arm. Her leg fell off. _

_She hobbled away from her body, and then launched her self at what used to be herself. She landed on it chest first, and suddenly she was up above the whole seen, watching the events below unfold. She had changed from a girl into a mass pile of broken body parts. And from the parts, smoke swirled up. What was it? She heard a faint whisper, like someone miles away was speaking. _

"_Fair…" it said. Fair? Why was it saying "fair?" But wait, it wasn't "fair." It was "Feyr." How she knew the difference, she could not say. "Feyr…" it repeated. _

_It took a while before she realized what the smoke was: her voice. _

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"Hey, hey… you," Iggy brought her back to the present. "Um… what's your name anyway?"

"I don't have a name," she said blandly.

"Well, you should give yourself one."

She thought. And after a moment she spoke. "Is Feyr a name?"

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**A/N: So, she has a name. **

**Little chorus of pixies in the background: Finally!**

**Me: Shut up you helium-addicted pointy-eared flying cockroaches! **

**Pixies: Never! You're the worst author and you know it!**

**Me: You know, you're really not doing anything for my self-esteem. Now shut up before I bring out the Raid. **

**Pixies: No! Not the Raid! We'll do anything! Pixies begin fixing the author's hair so that it actually looks good **

**Me: Next you can do my makeup. Just keep quiet and I'll put up with you.**

**Sister: Um, fabulous-author-whose-name-shall-not-be-printed, who are you talking to?**

**Me: The little chorus of pixies in the background that are spit-shining my shoes. **

**Sister: Um… okay She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Just remember to do your homework.**

**Me: NO! Not homework! I'll do anything! begins trying to fix sister's hair, which is already perfect (curse her)**

**Pixies: Review or she'll bring out the Raid! WE DON'T WANT TO DIE! **


	7. Sickness

**Me: So now we start Chapter 7 in the amazing adventures of-**

**Feyr: You writing a fanfic, not a comic book. **

**Shadow Clone: Yeah, my old author would never do that. **

**Me: Shut up, both of you! Feyr, do the disclaimer.**

**Feyr: (groans) Do I have to?**

**Me: Yes, or I'll bring out the Raid.**

**Feyr: (looks at author like she's schizophrenic) Um… okay. James Patterson wrote MR. James is a guy's name. That leads us to think that he is a guy. Our author is a girl. She did not get a sex change. Enough said? **

**Shadow Clone: You know, there is one possibility that we didn't consider.**

**Me: Which is?**

**Shadow Clone: You're a lesbian who wishes she was a guy and then you took on the pen name "James Patterson" and put a picture of a dude on the back of all the books you write so you really do own MR and you just want us to think that you're a regular teenage girl by writing fan fiction. **

**Me: There's one problem with that. **

**Little chorus of pixies in the background: What?**

**Me: Shut up. Most of his books were written before I knew how to read or write. Seriously. One was written in the 80's, I think. **

**Feyr: Darn. I was hoping that you were a lesbian.**

**Me: Whhyyy? I created you strait, didn't I? **

**Feyr: Um… about that…**

**Me: Oh, please no!**

**Feyr: I'm just kidding. **

**Me: Prove it.**

**Feyr:(grabs the guy the author likes and kisses him, long and hard) That good enough?**

**Me: (fumes too much to speak)**

**Shadow Clone: You go girl!**

**Me: (grabs the Raid) **

**Pixies: Duck and cover! Duck and cover!**

**Me: (puts Raid down and grabs keyboard)**

**Feyr: No… you wouldn't dare…**

**Shadow Clone: Please no! We'll do anything! I want to make out with Hunter, not Feyr! (Shadow Clone and Feyr start fixing the author's hair)**

**Me: Thank you. And just to clear things up, I'm not gay, I don't own MR, and gay guys are hot.**

**Feyr: You're so right. Just not the fruity ones.**

**Me: Yeah. I like the emo ones, too. **

**Shadow Clone: I second that thought.**

**Fang's Clone's Clone: You do? **

**Shadow Clone: Sorry, big brother. **

**Fang's Clone's Clone: Ha! So you do admit that I'm older!**

**Shadow Clone: No, it just sounds better than calling you a –**

**Me: Shadow Clone! Watch your language! Oh, my little virgin ears! Oh look, it's Iggy, the surprisingly hot sidekick. I mean bomb technician. **

**ICC: I'm hot?**

**Me: Fang's hotter.**

**Ian Snyder's Clone's Clone: What about me?**

**Me: Hotter than Fnick, but too old for me, unfortunately. What are you now, like thirty?**

**ISCC: I think I'm around 23. **

**Me: Whatever, still to old for me. **

**FCC: I'm hot?**

**Me: Very. Now… ON WITH THE STORY! **

**Pixies: Finally!**

**Me: (grabs the Raid) **

**Pixies: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! **

**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Fair?" Iggy asked.

"No, Feyr. F-e-y-r," she explained.

"Oh, and that makes so much sense," he said, his voice dripping irony.

"Hey, don't insult the girl who's been stuck in a room her whole life!" Feyr joked.

"Wait, that's right! You've been in a room your whole life!" Iggy exclaimed.

"You know, I really thought you were smarter than this…"

"No, I mean how come you know English and irony and stuff if you've been stuck in a room your whole life?"

"Ohhh!" Feyr said. "No idea. Thinking about it makes my brain hurt."

"Maybe it's a power," Iggy muttered.

"A power?" Feyr asked.

"Yeah, we all have them… 'cept Fang, now that I think about it… but Angel can read minds, I can tell who people are by the feel of their skin or fingerprints, Gazzy does that mimicking thing, Nudge senses echoes of people, Max has turbo drive, and… apparently you learn everything about a topic when you see or hear something about it once. Think of it: you only heard the song once before you were speaking perfect English, plus you sang it when you had never heard music before. And the flying thing…"

"Whoa, your right. So what's for breakfast?"

"How can you think of food at a time like this?" Iggy asked incredulously.

"How can you _not?_" she answered. "What's edible?"

Iggy rolled his sightless eyes. "Come on. There's some food in Fang's pack."

Nudge sat up from where she was sleeping, suddenly awake. "Food?" she called from the other side of the cave. "I want food. Food is good. What we got? Where are Max and Fang?"

"Nudge, slow down," Iggy said calmly. "Yes. We do have food. Yes. Food is good. No, I don't know where they are."

"But you _have _to! I mean, think of where they could be…"

"Nudge! I'm sure they just went out to fly," Iggy reassured. "Here, have some good food."

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I cracked open an eye to see –

The sun. Uh, oh.

"Fang, we over-" I trailed off when I saw that he was still sleeping. Aw! He looked peaceful, for once, and his emotions played out straight across his face. I savored the moment for a second more before I realized what I had used as a pillow: Fang. Oh, man, if anybody else were here they would so not let me forget this. Never. Like, ever! So I decided to wake him up.

"Fang!" I said urgently. His eyes shot open. "We overslept."

"Oh, and I thought it was something serious," he said. Then he remembered Drama Queen. "Oh."

"Yeah. We better get going."

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"I… I… I don't feel so cool…" Feyr groaned.

"What's wrong?" Gazzy asked. Nudge had woken everyone else up when Iggy presented her with food.

"I feel like… like…" Feyr suddenly gagged. "Oh, _wow."_

"I hope you mean 'wow' in a bad way," Iggy said half seriously.

"I _do. _I think I just tasted that Power Bar." Feyr got up clutching her stomach and headed to the edge of the cliff. Where she promptly threw up. On Max and Fang, who had been coming back to the cave at the time.

"Oh, that's nasty!" Max complained. Fang glared at Feyr before sitting against the cave wall. Feyr threw up again.

"What's her problem?" Nudge asked Iggy in a low voice.

"I don't think she's used to eating…" Iggy said.

"But she ate last night, didn't she?" Nudge pointed out.

"Well, see, at the School they would feed her every time she fell asleep. So the amount of food substitute they gave her is probably equivalent to a hot dog. Not a hot dog plus a Power Bar. Those things are practically _loaded _with calories."

"Well," Max spoke up. "I think we all know what this means. We have to go into town."

Feyr threw up again.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, for anybody who doesn't get why they have to go into town, here's why:**

**Fang and Max are covered in puke.**

**Feyr's hair has never been washed. Wait, Feyr herself has never been washed.**

**Everybody looks a bit worse for wear.**

**They need new clothes.**

**Nudge wants a greater variety of food. She's tired of PowerBars (those things accually taste good). **

**So now... REVEIW!!! **


	8. Addiction

**A/N: So, here we are. Chapter 8: where things **_**finally**_** start to get interesting.**

**Pixies: That took long enough! **

**Me: Do you really want me to bring out the Raid?**

**Pixies: (duck and cover) You wouldn't dare!**

**Me: Watch me! **

**Hunter clone: I'll get the popcorn! **

**Shadow clone: I'll get good seats!**

**Iggy: I'll… um… do something…**

**Fang: I'll get Max!**

**Me: Oh, no you don't, mister! You're mine for a whole… um…. How long is this going to take?**

**Ian Snyder: No idea.**

**Me: Um, Fang, you can go now. **

**Ian: (to readers) No, she doesn't own me, Shadow, Hunter, or any MR characters. **

**Me: Nor am I the author of great works like The Draco Trilogy, Completing my Soul, or Can't Cry. But I do try, so please don't flame. Oh, and Feyr's mine. **

**Ian: So…**

**Me: Oh, and before I forget, I have to apologize to **hunter **for mistakenly calling her a guy. I'm sorry; it's just there's this guy that goes to my school named Hunter. My bad. Guess I'm narrow-minded. (hits herself with her World History textbook) Dang, that hurt!**

**Shadow: On with the story!**

**Fang: … **

**------------------------------------------------------------**

After I stole a hairbrush, sent Fang and Nudge to get Feyr some decent clothes, practically padlocked Angel and Gazzy into a cave nearer to the town we had staked out and decided to use, and left Iggy to watch over them, I took Feyr to the only place a "homeless" girl in need of a hot shower would dare to go: the gym. For those of you who don't get why I'm doing this, let me explain. Gyms have showers. Gyms have soap. Gyms are usually not open at six o'clock in the morning. Gyms also have practically no alarm systems, and they are very prone to leaving the air vents near the top of the building that happen to look a bit like barred windows propped open. These air vents are unreachable to humans, but fortunately for Feyr and me, we are not human. We are American-Avians.

"Quick!" I whispered urgently. "Get in!" I was holding open the air vents (see above, Re: air vents) for her to fly through. Unfortunately, the air vents are pretty small despite all their good qualities, so when your wings are about to hit the walls on either side of the air vent you have to do this tricky thing where you tuck your wings in really quickly and then snap them out as soon as you're in. Feyr had not yet mastered the art of doing this.

"I wasn't watching when you did it!" she complained in a low voice.

"Who cares, get in!" Looking like she was about to faint, Feyr visibly gulped and flew towards the window/air vent. Thing.

And made it through. But you know what? I'm starting to get used to her little surprises.

"If I was a bathroom, where would I be?" I muttered as soon as we had landed. "Ah, of course, under the sign that says 'Bathrooms.'" We walked into the girl's locker room and soon located the showers. I pulled back the plastic yellow curtain and said, "So, Feyr. You ever worked one of these?" She stared at me blankly. Oh, great. I'm going to have to teacher her, aren't I? "Come on," I muttered as I pushed her into the small tiled square that passed for a shower. The phrase "beggars can't be choosers" popped into my head.

"Pass me your clothes," I ordered when I shut the after I shut the curtain. She tossed the shapeless dress over the top of the "door". I reached my hand into the shower and turned on the water. Feyr shrieked in surprise.

"It's cold!" she complained.

"Get used to it," I told her as I passed her a bar of soap that I had found by the sinks. "Rub this all over your body except in your eyes. It should make bubbles."

"Um, okay…" came the response.

About five minutes later, Feyr called, "Now what?"

"Now rub it in your hair."

"What?" Feyr sounded shocked.

I reached in and shut off the water. "Roll the soap around in your hands," I coached. "Then stick your hands in your hair and move them around to get all the dirt out."

I heard a sigh. I bet this didn't make any sense to her.

A while later I tried again. "Okay, your hair should be covered in bubbles. Or foam. Whatever. It is, right? Okay, now switch on the water, and don't let it get in your eyes."

She obeyed and turned off the water as soon as she was done. I passed her a towel and made sure she put it on before she came out. Hey, do you remember when I told you that I was getting used to her surprises? Yeah, well, I lied. Because nothing could have prepared me for the shock I got.

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Nudge held up yet another all-pink ensemble. "How about this?" she asked for what seemed the fiftieth time. Fang looked at her. "Guess not," she muttered.

"Nudge, why don't we head to a more… diverse store? This place is really… pink," Fang suggested.

"Okay. Where?"

"I was thinking someplace like PacSun, or Hot Topic…"

Nudge frowned. "Max won't like that."

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Fang said as he led Nudge out of the store. "Or it will bite her really hard in the-"

"Oh, look, there's Hot Topic. Man, it looks creepy. Do you see that cashier in there? His hair is all weird and stuff," Nudge said.

"Nudge," Fang said, bringing her attention back to him. Nudge quickly covered her mouth – the guy in the store looked a lot like him.

"Oh, look at that dress over there!" Nudge squealed as soon as they were inside the store. The plaid dress was hanging on the wall and had some black crisscrosses on the side. Somehow Fang suspected that Max would guess where it came from. He looked around. Hm… He couldn't get anything to obviously _his_ taste…

"Oh, wow, that's the prettiest outfit I've ever seen in my _life!_" Nudge squealed enthusiastically. She was jumping and pointing to some skinny jeans and a brown top that advertised a band that Nudge had never heard of. Hopefully she never would.

"Thanks, Nudge. Now can you go pick her out some shoes? And only one pair," he added when her face lit up. She stumbled off and Fang picked up the outfit in a size double zero. So maybe most girls would love to be that size, but Fang suspected that none of them wanted to look as thin as Feyr. Max thin was more like it. Max was probably as size zero, but at least she looked fed, even if they didn't eat all the time.

"Fang!" Nudge called. "Come over here!" Fang walked over to where Nudge was holding up two pairs of shoes. "These are really practical-" she said, holding up the combat boots, "-and these are really cute!" She held up some decorated flats.

"Practical," Fang answered without hesitation. It was what Max would say, plus they were running for their life. They went up to the cashier (who looked at Nudge like she didn't belong) and left the store.

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Feyr had platinum blonde hair. No really! Platinum blonde! I thought it was black or dark brown! Dang! That's a surprise!

"Um… your… hair…"

"What about it?" she answered, acting totally normal.

"It's… blonde."

"Really?" She raced over to the mirror and examined her reflection. "Whoa… it really is blonde!"

"Yeah, so I noticed. Come on; let's see if Nudge and Fang are back. At least now we know how to tell if your hair's dirty," I sighed. Yep, nothing could surprise me now. I swear. Not even-

"Whoa, your hair's blonde!" Nudge yelled as we walked out of the bathroom.

"Nudge, keep it down!" I whispered. Fang blinked at Feyr hair and the fact that she was wrapped in a towel. Then he turned toward me and held out the clothes he got.

"Thanks… hey, are these… never mind," I said, deciding to ignore the combat boots. I walked back in the bathroom with Feyr and helped her get dressed.

"Okay, this," I said, holding up the shirt, "is a shirt. It goes on your upper body." I pointed to my shirt.

She put on the shirt, and the jeans, and the shoes. Wow, this girl learns fast. Guess that means that I don't have to give her "the talk." I was still reeling from when I told Nudge. She practically flipped!

When we emerged I looked at Fang and I knew we were thinking the same thing: I sure hope that Iggy hasn't blown up the cave we chained them in. Sorry, did I say chained? I meant… Oh, never mind.

Nudge kept rambling on about Feyr's new outfit as we flew out the air vent/window thing (see above, re: air vent). Then I heard the words "Hot Topic." I turned around in mid-air to glare at Fang. He put on a "Who, me?" face. I stuck my tongue out. I know, I'm sooo mature.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gasman and Angel stared at Iggy. "Come on," Gazzy urged, "You have to do it sooner or later. Otherwise you'll wake up to 'Good morning, Chicken-head' and you'll go to sleep to 'Good night, Chicken-head,' and we'll frequently say 'Time to eat, Chicken-head' and we might even throw in-"

"Okay, I'll do it!" Iggy jumped to his feet. "I'm a little teapot, short and stout…" he sang as Gazzy and Angel rolled around with laughter at his feet. When he was finished, he looked in the Gasman's general direction and said in a clear, ringing voice. "Angel, I dare you to read Gazzy's mind while I make him think about embarrassing things." Gazzy turned pale.

"You wouldn't _dare!_"

Angel laughed. "Trust me," she gasped, "this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

Iggy clapped his hands. "Alright, let's get to it. Angel, start reading." Angel nodded (but Iggy didn't see it) and got to work. "Okay, Gazzy, remember those beach bunnies? And those hotdogs? Hmm, I wonder what would happen if we were to blow up the headhunter from that school Anne made us go to? Would he shower everyone with his guts? Or is he so ugly that he would implode?"

"Oh, _gross!_" Angel shouted. "Gazzy!"

"What?" Gazzy grinned sheepishly. "Okay, my turn. I dare… Oh, hi Max, Fang, Nudge… Feyr!" His eyes opened really wide at the sight of her hair as we flew up to the mouth of the cave.

Iggy cleared his throat. "_Ahem_! Blind kid here!"

"Feyr's blonde," I said.

"So?" Iggy asked.

"It looked like she had black or brown hair." Iggy made an "Ew" face.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So… Fang, truth or dare?" Nudge asked. Fang thought.

"Truth."

"Who do you think is hotter, Gwen Stephani or JLo?" Nudge asked.

"Gwen Stephani," Fang answered shortly.

"Why?" Nudge pressed. Fang shrugged. He looked around.

"Uh… Iggy, truth or dare?" Iggy answered truth without hesitation. "Is it true that… you have touched Max's underwear when you were digging around in her pack?"

Iggy flushed. He managed a mumbled, "Yes." I slapped him.

"Alright, bedtime, guys," I said. The younger group mumbled and laid down around our dying camp fire. "I'll take the first watch." I walked over to the edge of the cave and sat down, letting my feet dangle off the edge. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: I wonder how much it would hurt if I were to jump off with my wings tucked in? I dismissed the thought immediately.

"Hey," Fang said in a low voice. I jumped about a foot. Fang placed an arm around me. "You cold?"

"A little. So, what's up?" I asked him.

Fang shrugged. "I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about Feyr. She's really… unstable. And powerful. And she's obsessed with blood," he said quietly.

"Okay…" I said really slowly. I had no idea where he was going with this. I mean, Feyr was cool. She was okay, right?

"I just have a bad feeling about her. She's just really… young," he told me.

"Fang, she's inexperienced. How much damage can she do?" I pointed out.

"Yeah, she's inexperienced. That's exactly what I'm worried about."

* * *

_She looked around. Where was she? She didn't recognize anything around her. The chrome-topped table, the cabinets full of unmarked bottles, the shelf with sterile shiny silver things that could slice her open if the person using them decided that they wanted to, all of this was unfamiliar. She wandered through the room, pausing to touch the empty straps on the table, the tip of a razor-sharp knife, the screen of a monitor mounted on the wall. _

_And then she saw it. It was a little flap in the wall, the kind on the mailboxes outside of post offices. Above the flap was the word "Unusables." She pulled down the flap and was met by a smell so horrible it made her turn away and a sight so terrible that made her fear turning back around to face it. At the end of the chute attached to the flap was a big room. Directly below the chute was a cart full of dead bodies with pale skin and hollow eyes. A bit a ways from the cart but still directly on its path was a furnace. Who would torture these poor, innocent souls just to they could see them die, then burn the evidence? Her mind sought out the answer: the School. _

_They did this, she thought over and over. They did this. Her mind was thinking by itself, thinking one thing: they did this. She looked desperately around the room for some way out. She had to get out._

_There! A vat in the corner, hidden behind the cabinets. She strode over to it and judged its size. It was big enough to hold three grown men comfortably. It would be a good hiding place, since this room had no way to escape. She pried open the lid and found-_

_Blood. Sweet, metallic blood. Dark red and beautiful, it shimmered in the florescent lights. She dipped her hand in and it came out covered with the red. So it was real! She held it up to her lips and savored its beautiful taste. Oh, wonderful, amazing blood! _

"_So you are enjoying your snack, miss?" The voice came from behind her. She tried to see who it was but the person pulled a blindfold over her eyes. Strong hands lifted her onto the table and the straps were fastened around her wrists and ankles. She didn't bother struggling – it was no use. _

"_Miss, just so you know what we're doing, we are about to drain your body of its fluids, mainly of blood. Surely you would want to satisfy someone else's thirst?" the voice said again. It was right. Share. Maybe the School wasn't so bad after all._

"_Okay," the voice spoke, this time not to her, "shuck her."_

Feyr woke up drenched in sweat and what looked like blood.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, a bit of a disturbing end to what had started out as a good chapter… tell me what you think or I'll see if electric fences really work. **

_**Zzzzzzaaaappppp!!!!**_

**Okay, my sister just found out for me. **


	9. Everything

**A/N: So here we are at chapter… whatever, I lost track. Sorry I haven't written in FOREVER, but between homework, community service (for school, not the government), math team, debate team, **_**another **_**Holocaust project, a ginormous this-will-last-until-the-next-year project, and personal projects (re-read Twilight, read book I got from friend, read book I got from library) I haven't had time to write. Phew! That was a long sentence!**

**Hunter Clone: You're not kidding.**

**Me: Oh, shut up. I don't even own you. Silverwingedshadow does. (kisses silverwingedshadow's feet) **

**Feyr: So what's going to happen in this wonderful tale that you didn't update for about two months? **

**Me: idk.**

**Feyr: (clears throat)**

**Me: Sorry, Ms. Grammar Police. On with the story!!!**

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------**

Donuts. My verdict: love 'em. Why, you ask? Because when Fang brings them in from town as a surprise, there's no way you can resist these hot little guys. I smiled at him as he handed me one of Anne's (remember that little evil joy-sucker? Remember when I swiped her cards?) credit cards. I smiled as the Nudge Channel turned itself off to consume as many donuts as possible. I met Angel's eyes and jerked my head towards the entrance of the cave. She followed, as per usual. As soon as we were out of hearing range I knelt down to her level.

"Angel, I need you to do something for me," I requested.

"Sure. Anything," she said. I sighed – she was too trusting.

"I need you to break into Feyr's mind for me, assuming that you haven't already done so," I explained. She nodded, making her blonde curls bounce, and then her determined face came on. At first she looked puzzled, but then she became frustrated. Her eyes narrowed to slits, focusing on a point somewhere behind me. Then –

"Ow!" Her hands came up and clutched at her head.

"Angel! Are you okay? What's happening?"

"Oh, it hurts!" she complained. "Make it stop!" I wrapped my arms around my baby and hushed her. I'll skip all the drama, hugs, sobs, etc. so you won't get bored. Eventually she seemed good enough to let go of. I watched her face carefully for a few minutes as I held her at arms length, waiting for her to talk.

She finally said, "It was like it was broken… like there were a million different pieces all far apart from each other… like looking into a broken mirror and expecting it to be the same as a whole one…" I shushed her and asked softly if she wanted to go see if there were any donuts left. She nodded weakly.

We flew back to the cave just in time to hear: "I dare you to—" and then some hushed whispering. I joined the others who were sitting in a circle and pulled Angel next to me. "What's up?"

Fang looked at me from across the circle. Or pathetic excuse for a circle. It was kind of like an oval. Egg-shaped. You get the picture? "Max," he said slowly. "You're a sexy hot tamale. Can I lick your face?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Feyr looked at the moon that night. It was so pretty… And it had little shadows all over it, created by the craters. It practically defined beauty, she thought. Max and the others were sleeping and Feyr was trying to get over her cravings. It was a little hard- it'd come in waves, sometimes so hard that it made her vibrate where she was sitting. Nothing too bad, though. Nothing unbearable.

In fact, she loved it. It was new, therefore, she relished it.

Fang suddenly appeared in the corner of her vision, and Feyr jumped about a foot (not literally, she heard the expression from Nudge) but didn't say anything. Fang looked at the moon briefly, and then looked down, letting his hair drop into his eyes.

After a while he said, "Is everything okay?"

She blinked. What? Of course everything was okay. Why wouldn't it be? She shrugged. Fang shook his head. "Little liar."

"Do _what?"_ He did not just call her a liar. What did that even mean?

"Nothing."

"No, not nothing."

"Fine. Something."

"Then what?"

"Nothing."

"Ah!" Feyr threw up her hands in frustration. "You are so _impossible_! This is so not topping off my day! The pangs followed by the cramps and then the- never mind."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Everything."

--------------------------------------------------------

**A/N: So… not bad for a two month wait, huh? JK. Sorry it's so short, I just figured I needed to update… yeah. **


	10. is Payment

**A/N: So I'm sorry I haven't updated in about forever. I don't know… I guess I don't really have any excuses other than I just don't like FF as much as I used to.**

**So a couple things: **

**1) I am removing all fics but this one. **_**Of Floors and Ceilings**_** was more popular, but I don't care. I kept all my fics, drafts, and writing on a thumb/flash drive, and it crashed. So I lost my **_**Of Floors and Ceilings **_**chappys.**

**2) Originally this story was going to be about 30 chapters. Well, I lost the energy to write that much because of whatever (a.k.a. Honors classes) so I'm going to finish this one off and make it about… I don't know, two chapters longer?**

**3) My nose was off color today. It looked orange. I don't know why I just told you that.**

**So on with the story. **

**Oh, and btw, the song is Stitches by Haste the Day.**

**-------------------------------------------**

Feyr snored. Loud. Or loudly. I don't care about grammar much. But anyway, it was Feyr's snoring that woke me up.

Grr. Sometimes I wish I was two percent grizzly instead of two percent bird. I usually get over it soon because bears are fat.

Hm… I think I want a muffin. Muffin… Hey, I wonder what the average circumference of a cereal bowl is. So let's say we have this cupcake, but it has no icing on it. Wait, wouldn't that be a muffin? And why the hot sauce would someone in their right mind leave icing off of a cupcake? Must be Itex.

So anyway, back to the snoring. I mean, it's not like I expect for everything I touch to turn to gold or anything, but the Flock really looks Midas-felt in my book. Feyr is a little to imperfect. Every little flaw she has stands clear in my mind like she doesn't belong or something. To be completely honest, she creeps me out, which is saying something because I grew up with Fang.

She doesn't _feel _right, if you know what I'm saying. I can't talk to her normally.

I yawned, stretching and closing my eyes at the same time. I paused, frozen.

The snoring had stopped.

-------------------------------------------------------

Feyr supposed she should feel guilty about knocking Max out, but the song in her head blocked out any remorse.

_Five words, five words is all it would take.  
Five words to change your heart and mind.  
In the heat of the sun I know you're the only one.  
You still can't hold yourself together._

It wasn't necessarily the best song she'd ever heard; that place was still held by her first musical experience. Feyr looked down on the unconscious version of Max and made a snap decision that she liked that version better. It wasn't fair, she knew, but neither was this. She wasn't _free._ She might have had a better life locked up in that stupid world of hers.

_Alone… Alone… All alone you have this conversation _

_To satisfy your most intimate inner thoughts.  
Then you bite your lip when it matters most.  
A shade of red in sight_.

Feyr jumped out of the cave before anyone else, especially Nudge, woke up. That would be bad, and it would put another person on her conscious.

Not.

She stole through the darkness, anticipating the sunrise. It would bring little creatures like bugs and rats and things. Alive things. Feyr flapped her wings twice as fast as was really needed, admiring how fast the speckled wings could flap. She was glad she was a bird instead of a fish, no matter how beautiful a butterfly-fish was. She'd used Fang's laptop to look it up on Google.

A little squirrel crawled out of its little hole in a tree. Feyr spotted it with predatory eyes. She landed softly on the tree branch next to it and scooped it up in one smooth move.

"Hey, Squirrely!" she exclaimed softly. "What's up?"

_Can you taste the blood?  
Taste it on your lips._

Feyr tossed away the squirrel's corpse, hoping its little friends would bury it. Death would have come to it eventually, she told herself. She had spared him pneumonia or something painful.

Can squirrels get malaria?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can squirrels get malaria?

Angel woke to the random wave. The thought had been from something unfamiliar that she'd never heard before. Danger must be near, she thought. Something bad is happening… It was a minute before she realized: the thought had come from the broken mirror of a mind.

Feyr.

Oh, sexy tomatoes. This really figures.

_Rip the seam.  
Then I'll show you how the strings become the stitches in your mouth.  
In your silence we are louder.  
When the strings become the stitches in your mouth._

"Max," she called. The sun wasn't up yet and Angel had a little trouble seeing correctly. "Max!"

A quiet voice answered her. "Shut… up. Go… get… Feyr…" Fang seemed to have trouble keeping the rage out of the choked out the words.

Angel ran out into the morning.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Feyr was in heaven. Raccoon tasted much better than squirrel.

_Your growing imagination preparing you for what your heart requires to say.  
Then you bit your lip when it matters most.  
A shade of red in sight._

She figured she had about five minutes until sunrise. That gave her five minutes to feed. She smiled. Blood was much better than hot dogs, and it stayed down just as well.

"Hello, little bird. What's up? You don't look so well. It must be your feathers. Isn't blue such a dull color? You're very ugly, did you know that? Very ugly. In fact, you have no reason to live."

_Can you taste the blood? _

_Taste it on your lips._

A small gasp came from behind Feyr. "You're… you're…" Angel whimpered.

_Rip the seam.  
Then I'll show you how the strings become the stitches in your mouth.  
In your silence we are louder.  
When the strings become the stitches in your mouth._

"Crazy."

Feyr was stunned. She wasn't crazy, she was _sane_. It wasn't fair for Angel to say such a mean thing. "I hate you," Feyr sneered. "Bird blood taste good. It might taste as good as _you_."

Feyr grabbed Angel's arm menacingly and held tight. "Go on," Feyr snarled. "Give me what I need, what you owe me. Pay up your blood. You have a bit too much of it."

Angel screamed. It was a loud, pircing wail that resounded through the trees and shook the earth.

"Shut up!" Feyr cried, twisting her arm the wrong way. "Shut up you little brat!"

Angel looked hopeless, standing unarmed with tears rolling silently (finally) down her cheeks.

_Five words, repeating over in your head.  
That's all you ever have to do._

Iggy listened the scene unfolding from above. It was pathetic.

"Who are you?" whispered Angel. "What have you done with Feyr? The girl I knew was nice. Funny. Sweet. You are evil."

"Angel," Feyr said. Chills crept up Iggy's back. "Angel, my angel, don't you know me?"

Angel's response cut like a knife. "No."

Iggy swooped down next to Angel. "What have you become?" he spat.

"I haven't changed a bit," Feyr argued. "You just turned a blind eye to all of this."

Iggy's mouth dropped open. Touché.

Wings were flapping up above. _Fang._ Silent as an owl, Fang was hovering up above.

Then he heard the soft _thunk_ of a fist colliding with skin. Fang must have touched down and then and punched Feyr.

"I can't believe you!" Fang had arrived with Nudge. That left Gazzy with the unconscious Max. "I trusted you!" she screamed. "I TRUSTED YOU!!!"

She fell silent, at a loss for words. For once.

_Five words, repeating over in your head.  
That's all you ever have to do._

A soft click echoed through the forest.

Click.

Where did Nudge get a gun?

Fang stared at her in openmouthed shock. Nudge, the little peacemaker, with a _gun_?

"I'll shoot," she warned.

"What did I do wrong?" parried Feyr.

Nudge hesitated. "You betrayed our trust," she said finally.

Feyr shrugged and put her hands up. "Okay," she said. "Shoot me."

The gun shook in Nudge's hands.

_Five words.  
Is it really that hard to say?_

"Go ahead," Feyr taunted. "You can't do it."

Nudge closed her eyes and…

_You're worth more that this!_

And shot Feyr in the leg.

Both girls screamed. But they weren't just girls. They were kids playing with toys, Fang thought. Little kids who didn't understand things.

Feyr clutched at her leg and Fang walked over to her. "How would you feel?" Nudge shouted, but it sounded like it came from a great distance away. "How would you feel if I drank your blood? If I killed you? I felt your hate the first time I saw you!"

Fang knelt down next to her.

"

_(1) You're  
(2) worth  
(3) more  
(4) than  
(5) this._

"

And Feyr broke down crying.

_Rip the seam.  
Then I'll show you how the strings become the stitches in your mouth.  
In your silence we are louder.  
When the strings become the stitches in your mouth._

**--------------------------------------------**

**A/N: Okay, so that's probably been the most disturbing chapter (I scared myself. Feyr went insane) I've ever had to write. It's rushed and badly written, but it gets the point across.**

**The song is Stitches by Haste the Day. Watch the music video. It's AMAZING!**

**Originally I was planning to have a big alleyway showdown between Fang and Feyr with Max holding the gun, but this way I can end the story faster.**


	11. Insane

**A/N: Okay, so I've actually had this chapter written for about… four months now. I just forgot to put it up. MY BAD!!**

**--**

The Gasman recognized the importance of the job given to him by Fang. Max needed his help and he was going to give it.

But… how?

_Are you listening?  
We write a thousand pages, they're torn and on the floor.  
Headlights hammer the windows, we're locked behind these doors.  
And we are never leaving, this place is part of us.  
And all these scenes repeating are cold to the touch._

Well, the job was obviously a three part job: protecting, caring, waiting. Protecting Max from more harm came first, of course. Making sure she kept breathing was second. Waiting for her to wake up came third (this included entertaining ones self by playing music).

It wasn't fair. Max was _too_ strong sometimes and she hurt herself. She was always caring and sweet, but deadly if provoked. It sounded a bit like a real bird in the wild: always protecting the eggs.

Mm… eggs. Gazzy hadn't had breakfast yet, but he mustn't be distracted. Max came before food. Plus, he reasoned, she hadn't eaten yet either.

_My hands seem to deceive me  
When I'm nervous or when I'm healthy.  
The scenery's all drawn._

The Gasman heard them before he saw them. Feyr was screaming bloody murder (which it definitely looked like from the amount of blood spilling out of her leg delicately and falling in drops to the ground so far below as they were flying). When the rest of the flock – plus Feyr – touched down inside the cave, Gazzy leapt up immediately.

_They hang here from the walls dear,  
Painting pictures, bleeding colors,  
Blanket the windows._

Fang put Feyr down on the cave floor, gave her a pitying look, and then ordered Iggy to take care of her. Then he picked up Max.

"Good morning," he whispered in her ear. Her eyes fluttered open and Fang flew out of the cave with her in his arms.

--

After a short briefing on the events that I had missed while unconscious, Fang and I started in a brief question and answer.

"So she really did try to… eat Angel?" Yes, I had to check to make sure.

"Yes." Does the guy ever say more than one word?

"And that's what Nudge meant when she said Feyr was a traitor?"

"Yes."

"So Nudge really had a gun?"

"Yes."

"Is 'yes' the only thing you say?"

"Yes."

About five seconds of silence ensued before we both broke out in laughter. Fang grinned at me, the smile unnatural on his face. I turned my head. The smile seemed like it was private, somehow, something I shouldn't see.

"Where d'ya think Nudge got the gun?" I asked. I fake-glared at Fang, daring him to say "yes."

"No idea."

_Sometimes it gets so hard to breathe_

_Your eyes can see right through me_

"Hm. Well, It'll be gone by tonight, mark my words." My no-gun rule must stay effectively in place. "Do you know how Feyr's doing?"

"No."

"I guess we'll have to check on her. What will we do with her? I mean, it's like she needs to drink blood to survive. It's almost like a bad addiction. A problem. Like… cannibalism mixed with vampirism"

"Addiction," Fang repeated, turning the word over.

_Let the walls have their say._

We lapsed into silence. "So," Fang said at last, "Feyr and Iggy…"

"WHAT?"

"You know. They were all over each other with gaga eyes and… well, maybe not in Iggy's case."

"WHAT?"

Fang sighed. "Didn't you notice the atmosphere between them? She likes him (probably because of the 'work' the scientists did) and he doesn't know what to do with it."

So Fang, Mr. Emotionless, knew more about relationships than me, a girl.

Sad day.

I sighed and said, "What happens now? We forget about it?"

"We can't forget about it, Max. **She's my sister.**"

_Let the walls have their say._

--

_Let the walls have their say._

Katie groaned softly as she walked down the hall to her project. That's how she liked to think of it anyway: as community service that she had to do for school. She smiled to her two best friends, Minda and Audrey. "Okay, so whoever comes out first owes the other two that awesome pair of purple skinny jeans that we saw at the mall, all right?"

"Yeah," Audrey said, "but Minda will probably buy us straws instead."

"Well then," Minda murmured. They all shared a laugh and went down different halls toward their respective projects.

_Let the walls have their say._

Katie's shoes made a _shh_ sound as they brushed against the floor with every step. Being alone scared her. It made her feel like she wouldn't be alone much longer. When she finally reached the door, she flipped through the file pasted there. It listed everything about the person behind the door except a name.

'Great,' Katie thought. 'The one thing they forget.' She eased open the door slightly.

_Let the walls have their say._

_Let the walls have their say._

_Have their say…_

A thin, pale woman sat in a chair, watching a TV. Her hair was completely white, like her lacey dress, but her face was smooth and unlined. She couldn't have been over thirty. She was also small; the hard, wooden chair she sat in seemed to swallow her up. The lady did not turn when Katie entered.

Katie looked around the room. It was bare and white, except for a door, a barred window, and a mirror on the walls. A bed, the TV, and two chairs vied for space on the floor.

"Um… hello," Katie said nervously. No response came. "I'm… er… Katie."

No response.

"Who are you?"

_There's no conversation, words without remorse.  
And this television drowns the only source._

"What's your name?" Katie sat down nervously in the chair beside the woman.

The woman turned her head and looked at Katie.

No response.

Katie turned her attention to the TV. She would not be the first to leave.

At last the woman spoke. "I can fly," she said. Her voice was childish and high pitched, but it was full of longing.

Katie started at the woman. "Well, I _could_ fly," the woman continued. "Could being of the past tense. I've been learning."

Katie nodded. "I'm glad to hear that," she responded.

Silence passed. "I miss him," the lady said sofly. "I miss him so much. He never got to see me." The TV blared in the background. A horror movie was being shown, with blood and guts being strewn everywhere. "She touched me," the lady continued. "Well, maybe she never actually touched me, but I guess she felt me… maybe I really was screwed up."

_Wake from these dreams of you in my arms.  
Go to the staircase where you hold my heart._

Katie nodded, inconspicuously scooting her chair away from the woman. The lady bowed her head, making her white bangs fall into her eyes. "I wonder how they are…" she whispered. The door cracked open and two men stepped in, both dressed in suits that could have belonged at a funeral. Mixed with the woman's fancy dress, Katie felt like she was intruding upon some special occasion.

"Hello, Feyr," said one of the men, the one with dark hair. "How are you, sissy?"

And then the woman—Feyr—smiled. Katie ran from the room.

Who cares if she lost? She just had to get out of the Admiral Bragg Asylum for the Mentally Insane.

--

Back inside the room, the two men had given Feyr the flowers that they had brought her. "These are lovely!" she had exclaimed.

The dark haired man turned off the TV.

"Fang, honey, I was watching that!" Feyr complained.

"No, you weren't. You were talking to us."

"I said 'was'. I was watching that before you guys came in." She smiled at her own joke.

Fang stood up. "I'm going to go take a walk, okay? Try to find that girl and… well, help her calm down. Iggy, you and Feyr'll be okay without me?"

Iggy nodded and Fang walked out.

"Feyr," Iggy said, his first word since entering the building. "Feyr, I'm sorry, I came as fast as I could."

Fery smiled and lifted Iggy's hand to her lips so that he could tell. "Ten years is worth the wait," she said.

Iggy looked down. "You really did creep me out there for a while."

Feyr started playing with Iggy's hand in her lap. "I'm sorry," she said, sincerity coloring her voice.

"I know." Iggy's hand trailed up her arm and found her face. He leaned forward slowly and softly kissed her on her lips.

Fery smiled against Iggy's mouth. "Ten years," she said, "is worth the wait."

_This place  
These walls  
Mean everything to me_

--

**A/N: Okay, so I really was planning on one more chapter but there's nothing more to write. It's OVER! (finally) I've finished my first—and last—chaptered fic!**


	12. Whoops

**A/N: Hey guys, it's me. Wow, it has been a while. I decided I am redoing the ending and posting it up here as an alternate ending, so be on the lookout for that. No, I will not delete any chapters. I am just adding new ones on. So… yeah.**

**It has been so long. Wow.**


End file.
